A telescopic boom handler has a boom arranged in the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle. The boom is telescopable and can be raised about a horizontal axis. A fork is provided at the free end of the boom to lift loads. Due to the arrangement of the raisable and telescopable boom inside the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle, it makes sense to arrange the motor as well as the driver's cabin of the vehicle outside the longitudinal center plane. Typically, the motor is arranged on the one side of the longitudinal center plane, and the driver's cabin is arranged on the other side of the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle. Due to the arrangement of the motor outside the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle, it is necessary to transfer the torque of the motor to the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle where drive shafts leading to the axles of the vehicle to be driven are ideally located. Therefore, a transmission has to be provided to transfer the torque. The present invention relates to such a transmission. At the same time, the transmission is a reducing transmission for the motor, and it usually includes different gears, i.e. different transmission ratios or multiplication factors. The transmission ratios can be changed either manually or automatically which is not essential to the present invention.
A transmission for a vehicle having a motor arranged outside the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle is used in a telescopic boom handler of the firm "Caterpillar". The transmission comprises a reducing transmission to be rigidly connected to a motor arranged at a few degrees outside the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle. A cardan shaft connection is provided between the output shaft of the reducing transmission and the input shaft of the transfer transmission directly driving the drive shafts. The cardan shaft connection compensates for the angle between the motor and the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle. Due to the cardan shaft connection between the transfer transmission and the reducing transmission, the transmission is very big. Additionally, the cardan shaft connection requires a very exact geometrical arrangement of the components to compensate wow and flutter of the cardan joints.
Another known transmission for a vehicle having a motor arranged outside the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle is used in a telescopic boom handler of the firm "Gehl". The transmission includes a transfer transmission to be connected to the motor. The motor transmits the torque to a reducing gear arranged in the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle. The reducing gear drives the drive shafts of the vehicle. Due to the reducing transmission being arranged in the longitudinal center plane of the vehicle, the transmission requires a lot of room. Additionally, it is disadvantageous to transmit non-reduced revolutions of the motor by the transfer transmission since wear of the transfer transmission is increased thereby.